China no longer likes the risks associated with the derivatives markets

China delivered a blow to some of the world’s biggest investment banks on Monday as it declared its support for legal efforts by some state-owned companies that want to break loss-making oil derivatives contracts with foreign institutions.

The state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council said it was investigating a number of derivatives deals and would help companies find ways to “minimise losses”.

The move is the latest by Beijing to clamp down on the over-the-counter derivatives market after a number of state companies made disastrous bets on commodity prices and foreign exchange movements, losing billions of dollars.

But it will be greeted with dismay by foreign financial institutions, already reeling from a July decision by China’s banking regulator that sought to prevent state-owned enterprises from accessing the overseas derivatives market through domestic intermediaries.

Financial Times article

Markets hit by China commodity default

A report that Chinese state-owned companies will be allowed to walk away from loss-making commodity derivative trades provoked anger and dismay among investment bankers on Monday as they feared it may set a damaging precedent.

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the regulator and nominal shareholder for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), told six foreign banks that SOEs reserved the right to default on contracts, Caijing magazine quoted an unnamed industry source as saying in an article published on Saturday.

While the details of the report could not be confirmed, it was Monday's hot topic in financial circles from Shanghai to Singapore as commodity marketers feared that companies holding underwater price hedges could simply renege on the deals, costing banks millions of dollars in profit.

read:::Business World

NYT: China: Shanghai Shares Tumble 6.75%

Shanghai Shares Tumble 6.75%

By MARK McDONALD

HONG KONG — The Shanghai composite index plunged 6.75 percent on Monday to close out August with a drop of 21.8 percent, the worst performance for the month among the world’s major exchanges.

Monday’s fall, coupled with a drop of nearly 3 percent last Friday, has made for “a huge, huge decline,” said Dariusz Kowalczyk, chief investment strategist at SJS Markets in Hong Kong.

The overall index was down 192.94 points on Monday to finish at 2,667.75, the lowest closing figure in more than three months. Shares on the Shanghai exchange had rocketed more than 90 percent this year until they began to fall back about three weeks ago.

“It has brought the index into bear market territory,” Mr. Kowalczyk said. “There’s mounting concern over liquidity in the market. This is a big development.”

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Article: China Promises Not To Prick The Bubble

No matter how softly the Chinese government may try to say that they won't prick the market bubble, their message is obvious.

This weekend both Premier Wen Jiabao and some senior policy makers came out and made it clear that they won't do anything that could slow down the roaring market.

Business Insider

NYTimes: Chinese Company Said to Be Buyer of Hummer

GUANGZHOU, China — General Motors has reached a preliminary agreement for the sale of its Hummer brand of large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks to a machinery company in western China with ambitions to become a carmaker, a person familiar with the Chinese government approval process said Tuesday.

read>>> NY Times article

Geithner's Obeisance to Chinese Officials Reveals U.S. Weakness

By Simon Johnson

On his China visit, Secretary Geithner is immediately on the defensive. The language he is using on the Chinese policy of exchange rate undervaluation-through-intervention is the mildest available. And the commitment he is making, in terms of bringing down the US deficit – which we all favor – is an extraordinary thing to put numbers on in a foreign capital. Such commitments are of course unenforceable, but still the wording indicates – and is understood by China – great US weakness.

Not surprisingly, China seems likely to push for more. Their main idea is that some part of their US dollar holdings be transferred to a claim on the International Monetary Fund, which would shift it from being in dollars to being in Special Drawing Rights – and therefore a claim against (a) the IMF’s whole membership, and (b) presumably, the IMF’s gold reserves.

This is a bad idea.

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Farming billions in China

Contradictions in China, and the Rise of a Billionaire Family

DAVID BARBOZA

GUJIA VILLAGE, China — In the 1950s, the Liu family of southwest China’s Sichuan Province was so short of food, they sent one of their youngest sons to be raised by another family.

Shawn Liu and his father, Liu Yongxing, whom Forbes has listed as China’s richest man.

Today, however, they are one of China’s richest families.

Rising from public scorn during the Cultural Revolution, the four Liu brothers managed to turn a small quail-breeding farm into China’s largest private company, later splitting it into four.


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